


Don't Say Goodbye

by BrokenKestral



Series: Whumptober2020 [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Pirates, Protectiveness, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27014338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenKestral/pseuds/BrokenKestral
Summary: Peter and Lucy are taken by pirates. Inspired by Whumptober2020
Series: Whumptober2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970584
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Don't Say Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober: Prompt 8 Where Did Everybody Go?  
> “Don’t Say Goodbye” - Narnia
> 
> A/N: Sophia the Scribe, here’s the whump you requested. I hereby disavow any responsibility for pain inflicted. 
> 
> Warning: violence, cruelty to the helpless, and the nasty things pirates say.

Peter was dying. Lucy knew it, heard it in the rasping breath that whispered of drowning lungs, felt it in the burning forehead behind the bars, saw it in the pale face with the two burning spots of fever. She smoothed his forehead again, laying the hand she’d been cooling on the prison floor over it.

They’d been taken by pirates on their way back from Galma, on board a Galman ship, so their rank hadn’t been obvious. Peter’d fought with the crew, while Lucy guarded the helpless in the cabin. She’d failed, but she’d tried, and she’d ducked her head when they’d been led to the hold and people whispered to Peter how she’d stabbed three of the pirates who came into the cabin to take the women and children, how she’d fought so fiercely the pirates didn’t bully them. Lucy didn’t want to remember. Father Christmas had told her battles were ugly things, and they  _ were _ ; the red on her hands, running down her dress with a warmth that quickly grew cold, and the  _ sounds _ the men made as they fell, were ugly, ugly things. But Lucy knew what the pirates wanted to do would be uglier still, and she was proud of having fought, with a sick, desperate pride that steadied when Peter kissed her forehead and told her “Well done,” in a quiet voice. 

Now the two of them were sitting in a pirate ship hold, with all the women and children, and with six other sailors who’d survived, though three of them were stifling moans. Lucy looked at Peter, and Peter nodded. 

She got to her feet, hearing Peter rise behind her. He shadowed her as she walked to the hurting and knelt down beside them, a lion guarding her back as she tried to help. She didn’t have her cordial. 

She looked at the sailor , an old man with leathery skin and a long white beard, who was clutching his right arm. “Let me see,” she said briskly. “Peter, get some water, if you can find some.” They’d taken her dagger, and she didn’t have the strength to rip up her skirts, but she unwrapped the beautiful head-scarf that had been a present from the Princess, lifted the sailor’s arm, and laid the middle of the scarf beneath it. 

“Here,” said Peter’s quiet voice just behind her, and he set a bucket down to her left. She dipped one end of the scarf in it, and Peter, kneeling on the other side of the sailor, took his left hand with firm fingers and unclenched its hold on the wound. The sailor glanced from Peter to her, gasping when Lucy started washing out the wound.

“I’m sorry, but it has to be cleaned.” 

“Do it, go ahead, just— _ ughn _ —hurry.”

“Done, I’m done,” Lucy reassured, beginning to wrap it with the scarf. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, thanks to your brother,” the sailor grunted. His eyes went from Lucy to Peter. “Fought like a lion, ‘e did. Pirates lost ‘alf their crew.”

“We all fought,” the High King said in a low voice, but the man shook his head.

“They saw, they did, an I’m aboard to be sold to the Calormenes, an so’s your sister, like as not, but you-” the man shook his head, beard falling to one side of his neck. “You they’ll sell to a lord in Terebinthia, lookin’ for guards.” Lucy glanced up at Peter, worried, but Peter just set the man’s arm down gently. 

“Sleep. If we are headed to the slave markets, you’ll need your strength.” He got to his feet and offered a hand to his sister. Lucy took it, holding on to it as they walked to the next wounded. 

_ We’re in the paws of the Lion, _ she reminded herself. She took Peter’s hand after every wounded sailor, walking to the next. He reminded her of Aslan, sometimes, in the way just being with him made everything feel safe, even in the hold of a pirate ship. 

But it was the hold of a pirate ship, and they weren’t safe. Night fell and they slept, Lucy waking several times to get water for the wounded, and Peter always escorting her, but when morning came the door to the hold opened, and a leering, dirty face appeared in the sunlight.

“Out you get, if you know what’s good for you!” 

Peter went to lead but Lucy caught his hand and held him back. “They don’t know we’re royalty,” she reminded him. “We shouldn’t let them know.” Peter’s eyes hardened for a moment at the risk he was letting others take, but those around them had heard, and were already heading towards the light before Peter could lead. 

Peter put Lucy under his arm and held her to him. “Stay close,” he commanded in a low tone, reminding her that she, at least, was still his to protect. 

They went to the ladder and he scrambled up it first, only to be kicked to the side of the deck as soon as his waist cleared. “Take that, mighty warrior!” the black-bearded pirate who kicked him jeered, and Lucy glared at him. “Oh, and who’s this? The little girl with the dagger, that stabbed me best mate! Take this!” and he drew his foot back to kick her as well, but Peter rolled and grabbed it, yanking the pirate to the deck while Lucy climbed up. Peter got both feet pinned under him, swiftly reaching for the sword hilt headed toward his neck, when another pirate called, “Garn!” and the black-bearded pirate froze. Peter paused too, looking from one to the other, his breath coming quickly. “It’s outta yer share if one of them’s harmed!”

Black-beard scowled, but roughly pushed Peter off him and turned away. The other pirate watched Peter for a moment—probably to see if he was going to fight, Lucy thought silently. But Peter stood, letting his eyes fall to the deck after a moment, and the other pirate turned away. Lucy hurried to her brother, who was walking towards the rest of the captives with slow, even steps.

“Are you hurt?” she asked as quietly as she could.

“Bruised like a Centaur kicked me, but I’ll be fine.” He was already looking ahead, guiding Lucy to the middle of the group while he placed himself out the outer edge. 

The pirate who’d stopped “Garn”—a pirate with missing one hand, Lucy realised with a bit of curiosity and also a bit of nausea—yelled, “Listen up! Ya eat yer food, ya stay quiet at night, and ya do as yer told, and ya’ll be at the slave markets in one piece, and slaves in one piece, they have o way of bein’ treated better than ones missing limbs, ya get it?” He patted the dagger at his waist, and Lucy’s hands clenched. That was  _ her _ dagger. She’d been grabbed before she could pull it out of that last pirate, and apparently it had ended up in evil hands. She hoped it burned him. “Now that yer settled, get to work! Captain says he wants this here deck shining like his plate after lunch. Buckets is behind ya, and rags from the backs of the last slaves, the ones as didn’t do as they were told!” Lucy scowled at him once more, but turned with the rest. The “buckets” were rusty bars around a few boards, barely holding together, and leaking. The rags didn’t look much cleaner than the deck, but Peter handed her one, taking a bucket for himself, and the two of them went to one side. Peter set the bucket down, plunging his rag in the water and beginning to scrub; Lucy quickly followed.

“The pirates are watching us,” she whispered to Peter a few moments later. The cruel grins and crossed arms made her wish very strongly her dagger was on her belt, not another’s, no matter how much she’d hated using it.

“I know. I think it’s a test of some sort. I’d had an idea of going over the edge, into the water, but I think they’re waiting for that.” Peter paused, looking over at one of the remaining sailors. The sailor had paused, looking around, and then looked at the edge of the ship. Peter whistled softly. The sailor jumped and looked over; Peter shook his head. 

“Back to work!” a voice snapped. Both Pevensies looked up. Garn loomed, scowling down at them, and he raised his ragged brown boot to kick. Peter quickly moved in between it and Lucy, taking the kick once again, grunting as he did so. But he stayed on all fours, beginning to rub his rag on the wood. Lucy bit her lip, doing the same. 

Garn watched them the rest of the afternoon. Four times he raised his foot or hand to hurt them. Peter had taken every blow the pirate had aimed at his young sister, and Lucy, twisting the rag in her hands till it was in threads, hated every moment of it. But it was Peter, and she couldn’t ask him to stop. Two of the other pirates began watching them and Garn, the one without a hand and one with one eyelid sewn shut over an empty eye-hole. 

Dinner came, the captives being shoved back below deck before food was tossed down after them. The captives all grabbed for it, arguing, fighting, till Lucy went to the worst fight and silently offered one side her own food, and Peter put his hands on their shoulders. The pair froze, beginning to look ashamed, and the silence spread from them to the others. 

“Here, your —lass, take mine,” said the sailor whose arm she’d bandaged. 

“And you can have mine, lion,” another offered to Peter. Lucy accepted hers with a smile, breaking it in half and giving half back, and one by one the other captives began to follow their example. They all ate in silence, holding the kindness given and accepted against the dark and fear in the hold, and then falling to sleep soon afterwards. Peter placed himself between Lucy and the door, and reached over and held her hand. His fingers were strong and warm, and Lucy remembered again how good it was to have Peter as a big brother. 

They were woken an hour later. “Taking time, taking time!” echoed through the hold from rough voices. Pirates holding flickering torches clambered down the ladder, raising the torches high to see the startled faces on the floor. “Four for this stop, three men and a woman, which ones to go?” one of the pirates called up to the deck.

“The one with a bandaged arm, one with black hair, one with the blue shirt, and whichever woman ya want, ya idiot! Just make sure she’s pretty, he pays more for those!” The pirate kicked the closest one, the sailor with black hair. When the man barely stirred he reached down and grabbed the sailor. 

“Up!” he snarled, and behind him the one-handed pirate began to kick the bandaged sailor awake. They herded them towards the ladder, a third pirate joining them, and Peter tensed. Lucy took a step back, ready to follow, whether to fight—though she was small, she’d seen Mice fight and had watched with interest—or to stand. And then the first pirate’s eye fell on Lucy, and he started towards them.

Peter launched himself at the pirate, hands around his throat before the pirate could draw his sword. With a swift  _ crack _ the pirate was dead, Peter grabbing his sword, and heading for the next. Lucy looked from there to the third, the one-handed pirate, only to see a torch burning on the floor, and to feel an arm wrap around her and cold metal placed at her throat.

It was  _ her dagger _ .

“Hold!” the one-handed pirate yelled. Peter’s eyes glanced away from the one-eyed pirate and he froze. “Jack, get the cage. After ya take his sword.”

The one-eyed pirate grinned. He grabbed Peter’s wrist—Peter let him, never glancing away from Lucy—twisting, and Peter let the sword fall. “Oi! We’re bringin’ out the cage, boys, come down for some fun! We can take the cargo over at sun-up!”

Yells of pleasure answered him, and pirates began streaming down the ladder, the sailors quickly ducking out of their way. Peter, Lucy, and the two pirates did not move. 

The pirate crew spilled into the hold, kicking captives to the side of the hold when they moved too slowly, and about seven swarmed to the dark corner farthest from the door. Moments later came the sound of metal grinding over wood, and as more pirates lit lanterns around the walls, the object two of them were moving came into view. 

Lucy saw a cage, a box of metal bars, barely tall enough to stand in, but one and a half times a man’s height in width and length. One of the pirates swung the door open. 

“Now I’ve a right beautiful dagger, on a very beautiful throat.” Lucy felt the fingers stroke up and down her throat and then begin to squeeze. Peter went stiff. “Do as yer told, or one beautiful thing goes in the other.”

“Into the cage!” One-Eye barked, and Peter, eyes shining in fury, obeyed him. He took one step, then two, then three, till he stood in the middle of the cage. The pirates clanged the door shut, jeering at him as it closed. “Ready, great warrior? Can ya keep yer feet? Here, let me help!” The pirates, while their mates laughed, pushed the bars and Peter staggered. He tried to jump onto the moving bars, but they were too round and small. He fell. The back of his head hit the metal with a resounding  _ clang _ , and Lucy flinched. Peter —

The pirates laughed, letting Peter get to his feet, and then they smashed the cage into the hold wall, and Peter fell again. He tried holding on to the top of the cage, all his weight off his feet, but a pirate climbed up on the outside. He took the hilt of his dagger and began smashing Peter’s fingers, and Peter dropped again. He got up. They shoved the cage, and shoved, and shoved, until he fell. 

They kept that up for over an hour. The High King struggled, welts from the metal bars on his arms and the side of his face, and blood beginning to flow in his golden hair. Lucy felt like screaming, like ordering them to stop, like doing  _ anything  _ to help. But the one-handed pirate had not removed her dagger from her throat. 

And so Peter couldn’t even fight back. Lucy  _ hated _ this, fists trembling, breath gulping down her throat, and her eyes filling. But every time Peter got back up he’d look at her, eyes and mouth firm, and she’d swallow and nod. 

She was a Queen, and she would not give them her fear. She would not make this more fun for them.

The pirates finally ended their game after Peter fell and did not get up, his eyes closed. They shoved the cage a few more times, shaking his body till his head cracked on a bar, and then they laughed and left.

Lucy rushed to the cage. She reached for him, for her brother, straining her arm and her fingers just to touch him, trying to push her shoulder through the bars.

“Allow me, your —lass.” One of the sailors with longer arms stuck his through, grabbing Peter’s tunic and gently pulling him close to the bars. 

“Thank you,” Lucy choked out, feeling him hesitantly pat her shoulder. But her focus was on Peter. “Please bring me something to wash him with,” she asked of the others, steadying her voice, but even she herself could hear how young she sounded. One of the women quickly fetched water, and another gave her a scarf. Lucy wiped away the blood and wrapped his head, her hands moving awkwardly through the bars. 

And then she sat there, through the night, watching as her brother’s body began to burn with fever.

Peter was dying.

* * *

The others went to sleep soon after. Lucy stayed with her brother, bathing his head, then using her hands when the water ran out. She couldn’t keep him from burning up, and she couldn’t breathe for him, but she wished, oh how she  _ wished _ she could. But there was nothing to do in the night but pray, and feel Peter’s burning forehead.

A few hours before dawn—she guessed, she didn’t know the time—Peter stirred when she switched hands.

“Lu?”

“I’m right here, Peter,” and she tried to scoot closer to the bars. 

“They might take you at dawn,” he rasped. She patted his forehead.

“We don’t know that. Aslan still has us in our paws.”

“If they do—if they do, they’re not taking me yet. We’re close to Narnia, we must be, we haven’t sailed that far. Try to get back, if you can. You’ve done so much on your own before. And if you do—if you do, Lu, tell Edmund and Susan I love them, to take care of Narnia, and good-”

“Don’t say it,” Lucy interrupted fiercely. “Don’t say goodbye. It’s not dawn, they’re not taking me yet, and I won’t tell you goodbye. I won’t say goodbye till I know we have to. Aslan could still save us.” Peter smiled, a faint thing on his pain-filled face, and Lucy’s heart twisted. He looked like a dying soldier. 

“My valiant sister. Your faith never falters.”

“It can’t,” Lucy said, reminding herself and him, for she was trying to be brave, “because I’ve met Aslan.”

“And that is enough.” Peter closed his eyes, and Lucy’s eyes fell to his chest, making sure it rose and fell. She put her hand on his forehead again. 

Peter did not wake again, not even when dawn came and footsteps trudged over the deck above, or when the noise grew, or when the pirates clambered down, calling “Taking time! Taking time!” once more. They took the three sailors, and One-Hand came over to her. 

“Yer turn, little tigress,” and his one hand stroked the dagger. “Or should I use this to get ya away from him?” Lucy glared at him and didn’t move. He bent closer to her, till his mouth was right above her ear, his fetid breath washing over it. “The two of ya have been more trouble than profit, and if ya provide more, it’d be easy for me to tell the captain to kill one of ya, and the worst. Come quiet-like, or I swear by the sea I’ll plunge my pretty dagger in his burning chest.” Lucy silently got to her feet, stopping the shudder that ran through her when One-Hand put his arm around her shoulders. “That’s a good girl.” He pushed her to the ladder, climbing up behind her. She glanced around; to starboard was an island, large enough for an estate or two, with tree after tree on a rising hill. On the beach were large turtles, and there, that looked like a house—her attention snapped back to the deck as rope was wound tightly around her hands. One by one the four captives were lowered into a lifeboat with six pirates ready to row. Moments later they were heading for a small mansion a small distance from the beach, and coming out of the house was a party of men. Lucy looked back at the ship. 

“Goodbye,” she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek, and then another. “Goodbye, Peter.”

Two pirates jumped out of the boat to push it the last little bit onto land, and one of them grabbed Lucy around the waist, his hands hard and careless. He jerked her out of the boat and set her roughly in the water. When she stayed still, fighting to find her balance, he pushed her and she fell face first into the water. She felt hands grab her arms and pull her up, coughing out water, and a moment later she was pushed towards shore again. She staggered towards it, following the three sailors. 

“What ho, men! What wares?” Lucy’s head snapped up. She knew that voice. 

“Four folk, three gents in good health, and a girl, just like the Lord asked for, your worship.” Lucy’s breath came more quickly. That voice had been Lord Jarrick, a carpenter and fiercely loyal Narnian, but what was he doing here? And could he help Peter?

“Well, we must see what you’re offering. Move aside, move aside then.” The pirates around them stepped back, and Lucy’s eyes filled again as Narnians—all of them, Narnians!—came in sight. Lord Jarrick and Lord Peridan were there, inspecting the sailors, and there, coming up to her, putting a hand under her chin to pretend to see her face, was Edmund.  _ Edmund _ .

Lucy breathed quickly, forcing herself not to throw herself at him, to hug him as best she could with her arms tied behind her. She looked right into his eyes as they studied her, darkening at her wet hair and tears.  _ Peter! _ she mouthed at him, careful not to let the pirates behind him see. 

_ Where? _

_ Ship. _

He nodded. “I think we best take them, sir. Send them up to the house while we discuss payment, and our Lord’s request for more.” He looked towards Jarrick, though Lucy noticed he stayed close to her. She wanted to protest, to say that she wanted to be there to go back to Peter, but this was  _ Edmund _ , and she trusted him. 

“Our Lord has need of more slaves; have you any more aboard?”

“Of course, of course! If you tell us how many-”

“We wish to see them for ourselves,” Edmund cut him off, and the pirate frowned.

“Now, we don’t let nobody on our ship. That’s just not smart.”

Edmund paused. “Very well,” he said sharply. “For Narnia!” At once all six Narnians and their King drew their swords, thrusting the pirates through or hitting them over the head before a single one could react. 

“Edmund, we have to get to Peter! They hurt him, and he has a horrible fever-”

“Easy, Lu, easy.” Edmund wiped his sword and sheathed it, drawing a dagger to cut her ropes. She threw her arms around him and held him, feeling him do the same to her, just for an instant. “Lord Jarrick, Lord Peridan, everyone, get into their clothes. It won’t work for long, but it will let us get close.”

“We’ll come back too, we can say the Lord changed his mind. I’ve a mind to fight,” one of the sailors growled. Lucy felt Edmund’s arms tighten, and she forestalled him by speaking first.

“I’m coming too. I’ve got to get back to Peter.” She felt Edmund’s chest rise and fall as he sighed, the breath stirring her hair. 

“Peter will never let me hear the end of it, but I don’t like leaving you here, either. The Lord didn’t like our coming. Or our freeing his slaves, since they were mostly Narnians. But you  _ stay in the boat _ .” 

“Fine,” Lucy agreed. 

“Then here,” and Edmund pushed her back, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a fine gold chain with a small bottle attached. “When Purpoise brought us word—he’d seen you taken from a distance, and swam all night to reach us, we barely got here in time—I guessed we’d be needing this.”

“Thank you,” Lucy whispered. She looked back at Edmund. “We need to get it to him  _ now _ .”

“To the boat!” Edmund yelled. He lifted Lucy carefully and put her in the boat—which she wondered at, for a moment, till she realised he’d probably seen her pushed into the water earlier—and swung himself up after her. 

It only took a minute to reach the boat, but Lucy’s heart pounded harder and harder as the wooden hull grew closer. But the appearance seemed to work, for they weren’t challenged, not as far down as they were, and a ladder was swung over the side for them. True to her promise, Lucy stayed below till the sounds of fighting grew still, then she climbed up the ladder as quickly as she could. 

On deck the pirates lay sprawled, two of the sailors and four Narnians, Lord Jarrick among them, still and quiet as well. Lucy ran to them, heedless of her own safety, dropping a drop of cordial between each pair of lips, staying just enough to see them open their eyes and gasp for breath, and moving on to the next. She hated this, but she was a Queen, and they might be worse off than Peter. 

Finished with the six, she ran for the ladder to the hold, letting herself slide down it as Peter and Edmund taught her for fun. She turned at the bottom.

The hold was crowded. Narnians reassuring the captives, the bandaged sailor among them, and a ring of them surrounding the cage. Four pirates sat sullenly in one corner, under Narnian guard. 

She ran, nearly tripping over a weeping woman, catching herself to run up to the door. Edmund and Peridan were there, using their daggers to pry it open, and Edmund had Lucy’s in his hand as well, having taken it back. They two had just gotten it ajar when she ran up. “Let me through,” she panted, and Edmund quickly made way. She slipped through, Edmund after her, leaving Peridan to hold the door, and both siblings knelt by Peter. 

He still didn’t wake. But he was breathing, if flushed, and Lucy breathed thanks to Aslan as she unscrewed her bottle with quick fingers once more. It was her turn to fight for Peter. The smell of the fireflowers filled the hold, stilling the relieved weeping, and drawing a curse from one of the pirates. She let one drop fall into the High King’s mouth. 

Silence, for a moment. Then Peter breathed out, the fever-spots fading, his face no longer pale, and a moment later his eyes opened. Lucy leaned over him and smiled.

“Hello, Peter.”


End file.
